In podcast 298, Paul continues his discussion with Jack Spirko, from The Survival Podcast, and Josiah Wallingford, from Brink of Freedom, about their latest project, PermaEthos. Jack and Josiah begin by talking about the opportunity to be an Element Partner with them on one of their farms. Basically, an element partner would find an element of the farm that they want to work with and come up with a business plan regarding that specific element. Then the partner would talk about it with Jack and Jo and if they approve, they will help you start up, develop, and establish your business. This doesn’t have to be a 20 page business plan but they are expecting the prospective partners to put a lot of thought into it. He gives the example of Michael, the bee guy who is going to start up a little bee products business at Elisha’s Farm.

The guys compare and contrast the element partners of PermaEthos to Joel Salatin’s Fiefdoms for quite a while. They then talk about the risks and challenges of having other people doing business on your land. Jack emphasizes how serious of a business man he is and how he expects his partners, even the element parters, to bring the same realistic mind-set to their farm.

The next thing the guys approach is ethics. Paul notes that this has been an ongoing argument between him and Jack for years. For the sake of keeping this summary less than twenty pages, we will just say Paul prefers to leave ethics out of the conversation. He believes this because he has seen that when you teach the permaculture techniques, ethics automatically come with it. On the opposing side Jack believes that you must teach ethics first and foremost because if they were practiced the way they were originally defined, they would develop the solutions for you.

Once they finish up their lengthy ethics discussion, Paul steers the conversation back to PermaEthos. He makes sure that his pod people know that anyone can find all of this information at permaethos.com if they are interested. The last big thing Jack and Jo have to announce is PermaEthos TV. They are super excited about this because they have an experienced, passionate tv producer who will be making an actually real reality show about permaculture and he is starting at Elisha’s Farms. He will simply document the real events that go on day to day and people can see the ins and outs of how a permaculture farm is designed and ran. You can subscribe to this very soon and if you sign up for the newsletter at permaethos.com they will definitely let you know when that will be available.

The guys talk a little bit about the hindrance the government has on positive changes in this country and then wrap up with a debate about kickstarter. Paul likes it. Jack doesn’t. You can hear the dirty details in the podcast.